VERSES 



WILSON JEFFERSON 




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Book 'E^ f V4- 
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VERSES 



WILSON JEFFERSON 




BOSTON 

RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 
1909 



Copyright 1909 by Wilson Jefferson 



All Rights Reserved 






The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



©C(.A251871" 



CONTENTS 

PAGE. 

A Memory 5 

Should I Despair 6 

The Clod Speaks 7 

Night Workers' Song 8 

Dead River 9 

The Workers lo 

The Builders 1 1 

Dreams 12 

The Gift Possessed 13 

Journey's End 14 

After Death 15 

The Wife 16 

Pioneers 17 

The Vine 18 

A Song of May 20 

To a Book Peddler 21 

For Lo! He Stooped and Sighed 22 

Thought 23 

Sonnets of Remembrance — 

Lincoln 24 

Garrison 25 

John Brown 26 

3 



CONTENTS 

PAGE. 

The Secret 27 

Militant 27 

To Miss S. D 28 

The Soul That Surpasses 29 

America 30 



A MEMORY 

A rich rare grace green fields o'crspread — 
Bird notes rang clear — the dew 

Sun-kissed at morn threw back the charms 
Given to earth by you. 

On those first days we braved the maze 
Of life's old things and new. 

Earth, air and sky bent to our wills 

And moved in unison 
With all the present's store of bliss 

And all yet to be won : 
Then the heart's beat and striving feet 

Heeded life's call as one. 

The low dull hum of deadening things 
Reached not our fair demesne, 

Dwellers of earth we lived apart 
In a fair world serene, 

Where cares like swift sea-seeking streams 
Love's fingers slipped between. 



SHOULD I DESPAIR? 

Should I despair because my lot on earth 
Is bound and meted by the chance of birth? 
Should I despair because earth's vested power 
Demons can wield for one brief soulless hour? 
Should I, forsooth, allow the monster, Hate, 
In me to rise and stain my soul's estate? — 
And grieve if knowledge all its powers use 
Distrust to kindle and to nurse abuse? 
Know thou, my soul, a vaster kingdom lies 
Beyond this rim of meeting earth and skies. 
And here and now the guileless heart can feel 
The power that shapes a godly people's 

weal, — 
The Presence that, unseen, still shapes the end 
Of those who, claiming strength, on God de- 
pend. 
And, owning weakness, place their hope and 

trust 
In him whose banner ne'er yet trailed the 
dust. 



THE CLOD SPEAKS 

In kindred, groveling dust I lie, — 
A part of earth, to earth I clingy— 

Yet kin I am to stars on high. 
And man I give meet nourishing. 

The rich, the poor, proud king or clown, 
Are for a day my betters all; 

Yet the same feet that press me down 
Press onward till beneath my thrall. 

Though all things bloom to fade, I boast 
The primal strength I knew of old, — 

And new strength gain, as all earth's host, 
Or soon, or late, I shall infold. 

As men know death I know it not, — 
Both man and nature I defy, — 

Systems and powers will be forgot 
And perished all — ere I shall die ! 



NIGHT WORKER'S SONG 

We seize the tangled skein of things 
When tired hands are folded by, 

And night to our unraveling brings 
The glory of the star-set sky. 

Day with its garish charms departs 

And dark, gem-studded, rims our world; 

And peace all-healing seeks our hearts 

From night's dim, star-strewn spaces 
hurled. 

Moonlight and mist and silence weave 
A calm that soothes the wearied brain; 

The round, full earth may sob and heave, 
But we know not its pulse and strain. 

We lightly drift from cares along 
Earth's planet-whirling, distant way. 

And hear the fabled heavenly song 

From hights where no earth-interests stray. 



"DEAD RIVER" 

[A local legend tells of a woman who 
fruitlessly waited the return of a truant and 
faithless lover, and finally, bereft of reason, 
drowned herself in the waters of this river. 
It was then a part of the main stream of 
the Savannah, hut thereafter the river grad- 
ually changed its course and left this sleeping 
calm.] 

Its waters, quiet, cool and dim. 
E'er keep a strange devotion, — 

Even the oaks and poplars slim 
About it show no motion; 

Placid its bosom lies and weirdly still 

To streams that pierce the plain or leap the 
hill. 

Its face by day reflects a sun 

Soft-lying and at rest 
Like to an infant lulled upon 

Its mother's tender breast. 
By night it wooes the glancing vagrant star 
With charms as rare as any maiden's are. 



Strangely it keeps a hallowed peace 

Amid the world's wild roving, 
And from the thrall seeks no release 

Of one once madly loving; 
Strangely it shows that constancy and love 
One heart defiled and one heart died to prove. 

THE WORKERS 

Toil-seeking, yet with morn's glow in their 
faces, 
By sleep and dreams renewed, they haste 
along; 
Dark roofs that hide from them life's sunlit 
places 
Await them, yet they go, a joyous throng ! 

But passed the long dull day I see again 
Homebound, the weary, shambling haste 
of those 
Who joyous saw morn's golden amber stain 
Poured round the sky when daylight first 
arose. 



lO 



THE BUILDERS 

Through labyrinths of crossing beams 
Bold, crafty figures sunward glide, 

And toil serene where virgin gleams 
Of daylight fall their way beside. 

Yonder on frail, scant scaffoldings 
A bit of pulsing life looks down. 

And higher still a figure swings 
Between the flaring sun and town. 

Like a new tribe or species sprung 
To serve the gods of Use and Space, 

Some kindly spirit hither flung 
Yon hardy, nimble-footed race. 

And solved for each the mystery 
Of all that doth far planets bind, 

Wherewith to rear strong walls to be 
A hive for teeming humankind. 



II 



DREAMS 

I reared a dream-spun fabric to the sky, 

Woven of all the glorious thrills of youth; 
Like threads of silver, life's bold hopes and 
high 
Ran through fair threads of golden-prom- 
ised truth. 

Then one by one came earth's disasters 
swift — 
Rough winds to shake and mists to hide its 
gleaming — 
Till scattered wide its shattered fragments 
drift 
Earthward, but I to other ports of dream- 
ing. 



12 



THE GIFT POSSESSED 

To a Caged Bird 

Thy home, gay songster, Is the free 
Far leagues of space's immensity — 

Dim woods and quiet, leafy bowers; 
Yet from thy prison small and bare 
Thy soul, forgetting bounds, doth fare 

In strains that shame man's cruel powers. 

Wings hast thou, and the instinctive sense 
That, free, thou couldst pierce the immense 

Far stretches of a luring sky; 
And yet, forbidden, thou thy wings 
Foldest, while from thy heart upsprings 

Sweet strains thy lot to glorify. 

O bird ! would that my heart, like thine 
Earth-bound, could still feel the divine 

Sweet issues of the gift of life — 
And should to me heaven aught deny, 
Would that I still might glorify 

The gift possessed — come calm or strife. 



13 



JOURNEY'S END 

I have felt the lures of earth, 

Sun-flecked road and heaving tide; 

But the place that knew my birth 
I would seek now, to abide. 

Through life's noon-time splendor, I 
Roamed and felt the world's wild call; 

Give me now a glimpse of sky 
Here where peace is over all. 

Once earth's bounds to me seemed nearer. 
And my joys sprang from the road; 

Now yon hearthside calling clearer. 
Rest would give me and my load. 



H 



AFTER DEATH 

And for his passage 
The soldier s music, and the rites of war 
Speak loudly for him. — Hamlet. 

"The soldier's music, and the rites of war" — 
Aye, for his passing fain we grant him these, 
Who reaped in life heart-pang and jeer and 

scar. 
While men, unknowing, reaped his victories. 

In life men pitied,— but his faith was bold; 
Men counseled, but he strove in his own way; 
Men balked him, but the truth his heart did 

hold 
Triumphed, and heaven, somehow, earth's 

debt will pay. 



15 



THE WIFE 

I glory when earth's honors come to thee ; 

I sorrow when thy cherished plans go wrong ; 

Attuned to thine, my heart beats weak or 
strong, 

And naught thou reapest but what yields to 
me: 

Yet often more than what the world doth see 

Of good or 111 I bear with joy or tears; 

My poor heart quails ofttlmcs, and yet o'er 
fears 

I shrink from, thou, through me, hold'st mas- 
tery. 

Deep in my soul thou knowest I little care 
For things prized dearly by the throbbing 

world; 
For thy approval all earth's gifts I'd spare, — 
Nay, count naught lost If Love his flag un- 
furled 
O'er the strewn wrecks of all our earthly 

gain. 
And left thy heart and mine without a stain. 



i6 



PIONEERS 

Across the prairies wild a cavalcade 
Winds its slow way — or hugs the mountain- 
side 
'Neath frowning cliffs, and where stretch 

chasms wide: 
Where the deep canon throws its death-like 

shade 
They penetrate. Naught leaves their hearts 

dismayed. 
One pulsing hope urges the restless tide 
Out where God's mighty stillnesses abide, 
And the West smiles! — as yet by man un- 
made. 

On, on they move, defying death and all 

The sombre train of earth's calamities; 

The fire that glows within, nor home, nor 

ties 
Of friends or kin could quench, nor aught 

enthrall 
The spirit bold that urged them stake life's 

best 
For all the storied splendor of the West. 



17 



THE VINE 

i 

This thing I saw about a common vine 

That sprang from common soil; 

Following the nature of its parent stock 

That earth and air and sun 

Had wakened, coaxed and urged 

To full free life, — 

High in the air its tendrils reached, 

Like a thing of sense. 

But not so seeming good or kind, — 

So smiling like, is earth always; 

Rains pelted and winds tossed 

Its stem about. Heat and cold, 

Following too closely. 

Dwarfed it. Careless feet 

Twice pressed it down. 

"Surely," said I, "'twill never reach 

A coign of support." 

But one brave tendril, all undaunted, won 

My sympathy as up It strove 

Above its fellows. 

It reached to clasp a neighboring bush, — 

Through a long day toiled painfully, — 

And failed. 



i8 



Then, not discouraged, on the next 

It reached again, 

And groped and sighed, 

And spent itself, — 

Its goal still bafflingly remote. 

Then through succeeding days 

It likewise toiled. 

Sorrowing it seemed that fate its life 

Had doomed to unfulfilment. 

Days passed and I the vine forgot. 
So near to failure did the issue seem, 
That I confused and all uncertain, — 
For thoughts of failure often bring 
Regrets that blur sad issues out, — 
Forbade my thoughts thereon to dwell. 
And then by chance my eyes one day 
The erstwhile trailing tendril caught. 
And lo ! it had its haven reached, — 
Had drooped and sighed, no doubt, and 

moaned. 
But still itself about itself 
Had twined; 

Had reached and drooped 
And twined again, 
And still again. 

Till its own body gave it strength 
A.nd stoutness to reach out and clasp 
The neighboring bush. 
19 



And there It grew, 

Twisted about Itself and curled 

And all unshapely, — 

Its symmetry and grace all lost, — 

But earth and the untowardness of things 

Spurned, and new glory given 

To faith sublime in self! 

A SONG OF MAY 

My soul, look thou beyond the gloom 

Of sorrows strewn between 

The short-lived joys of yesteryear. 

To where in rolling grace appear 

Yon billows of soft green, — 

And know a thousand thousand hopes 

Rise daily with the sun, — 
While life, like earth's unfolding, brings 
New gifts of cheer, and glimmerings 

Of joys yet to be won. 



20 



TO A BOOK PEDDLER 

Meek, cheerful, hopeful, upward looking 

man ! 
Thy task Is one unlovely, and thy lot 
Not to be envied, yet withal thou art 
Man's benefactor, counselor and friend. 
The world its back turns on thee in disdain 
And dubs thee nuisance, trifler, and the like, — 
Makes thee the butt of coarse, unfeeling 

jokes, — 
Impatient leaves thee and thy wares, nor 

heeds 
Thy piteous appeals. But these are they 
Who need the kindly pitying prayer and 

tear — 
Despairing ones who've never known or felt 
The sweet delights of books. Black Ignorance 
Encircles them. Their faculties are doomed 
To move In one worn groove of empty 

thought. 
They see just to their finger tips, nor wish 
Further to scan. 



21 



Ignore their frowns and jee^s; 
Pass by their cold refusals and the smile 
That leers, and ply thy trade for us who wish 
Broad fields of wisdom and of wit to roam — 
Who would o'erstep the narrow bounds of 

time 
And circumstance, and fondly contemplate 
Thought ages old and wide experience 
Flowered into feeling poetry or prose. 

FOR LO! HE STOOPED AND 
SIGHED" 

We are poorer since she died — 

Sadder, poorer, since she died, 

Yet sure I am that Death 

Gazed and turned a worshipper: 

For lo ! he stooped and sighed, 

Stooped and eased the pain-drawn breath, 

And laid, in tenderest love, his hands on her. 



22 



THOUGHT 

Weak and unavailing thought Is, If It's warm- 
ed not by the heart : 

Deeds born of It lack the fire that divorces 
deed from doer; 

Words born of It lack the essence that an- 
other heart would cherish; 

All things born of It are short-lived, empty, 
vain, and unavailing. 



23 



SONNETS OF REMEMBRANCE. 

I 

LINCOLN 

Beside thy greatness, O most noble man! 
Speech seems a vapor striving with the sun; 
And all our far-fetched figures vainly run 
A gamut metaphoric, when the plan 
Of thy rich wisdom they would wisely scan. 
Our similes and tropes in love begun 
Strive at high tasks, but ere a victory won 
Acknowledge that our love all thought out- 
ran. 

And yet, to venture, thou art like a tree 

That doth in some dank forest side up- 

spring. 
Stalwart and bold, a beacon of the glade. 

Whose limbs far-spreading tell of liberty. — 
Giving support to lesser things that cling, 
To rivals of its greatness offering shade. 



24 



II 

GARRISON 

A later knowledge man has somehow gain- 
ed— 

A knowledge born, they say, of wisdom 
rare — 

That honors means, not ends, and doth 
prepare 

To cancel griefs and wrongs that long have 
pained 
With sore afflictions, as by heaven ordained — 

Not rashly, as they say, but biding time 

And circumstance, till man and goodness 
chime 

And all the boons of love flourish unfeign- 
ed. 

But thou, O Father, knowest of his heart 
Who stirred at wrongs, impatient as the 

wind 
Sweeping the level fields of bending grain; 
Who evil saw and nobly did his part; 

Left friends and foes and dalliers all be- 
hind, 
And strove to bring to earth thy love again. 



25 



Ill 

JOHN BROWN 

God fired his soul with purposes of right, 
Gave it a dauntless daring glow, and gave 
Its owner faith, that armor of the brave 
Who heed the heart's appeal against man's 
might, — 

And then with boldness flamed he on the sight 
Of men and weaklings, like a star far- 
flashed 
Across the waiting dark, leaving abashed. 
In rich effulgence, those of lesser light. 

Even now his courage glows across the years 
Of servile thought confused and faith 

grown cold 
With no uncertain glimmer; as of old 
It stirred the heart through self-forgetting 
tears — 
It still condemns the part that reason plays 
O'er hearts unreasoning and degenerate 
days. 



26 



THE SECRET 

Life's best for self I'd win, and yet 

I'd spare another pain; 
The boons of life I seek, but set 

My soul on righteous gain. 

And so I teach my striving heart 

A noble way to live ; 
I always find life's sweeter part 

Left when the best I give. 

MILITANT 

I strive with fervor, yet my heart 
Accepts earth's sure decree 

Whereby I only gain in part 
The all that I would be; 

But 'gainst the dull effects of things 

That bid me less desire — 
Life, steel me with the faith that brings 

Thy unrelenting fire. 



27 



TO MISS S. D. ^ 

Having Attained Her Majority 

A child thou wert the embodiment 

Of winsome wiles and graces, 
A radiant, flower-like presence sent 

To cheer earth's lonely places, 
A breath of morning's sweetness blown 
About a world with weeds o'ergrown. 

All that those early years foretold 

Time fitly now discloses, 
Of the soul's promise of pure gold 

And cheeks to bloom like roses; 
For childhood's charm still round thee lingers 
Dulled not nor marred by time's rough 
fingers. 



28 



THE SOUL THAT SURPASSES 

I grieve not that my hands are bound 
To dull tasks, and my feet must go 

Ofttimes the care-encumbered round 
Weak, struggling mortals know; 

My heart can spurn the strife and noise 
Of warring things that round me rage,. — 

For out of love's far deeps come joys 
Earth's sorrows to assuage. 

My weak earth-humbled flesh can creep 
Awhile past life's despoiling things, — 

And my bold soul can rise and sweep 
Past earth's mean offerings, — 

Where all the pangs of grief I've known, 
And all the cares that burdened me. 

Shall drift like leaves by wild winds blown 
From the storm-beaten tree. 



29 



AMERICA 

Fit theme art thou for prophet, poet, seer, — 
America, home of earth's far-straying tribes ! 
Nature has flowered in thee, through men 

and things. 
And bold high purposes, full many a wish 
Long cherished by the nations older grown. 
Thy youth with many a garland rich and rare. 
Such as become the ripened age, is decked; 
And thou a host of glorious memories hast, 
Rich with a store of honors nobly won 
From noble causes fathered by the sons 
Who nurtured at thy bosom ; richer still 
In inspiration to the advancing lines 
Of newer sons, upon whose shoulders rest 
The fashioning of the state the fathers 

dreamed. 
Whose base is brotherhood, whose fabric is 
Of love and tolerance and faith compact. 
And 'tis w ith these thy future weal doth lie ! 
Into their keeping all thy dearest boons 
Are fondly given — and unto them thy past 
Makes its appeal: Lincoln and Washington, 
And Garrison, outspoken for mankind, — 
Whittier the gentle, and high-starred John 

Brown, — 



30 



And many another unknown patriot gave 
Thy Institutions goodly scope and power — 
Relinquished for mankind the narrow ties 
That bound them to a selfish gain, and spent 
Life to its uttermost for thy advance. 

And yet the power that's now thy pride can 

be, 
If loosed to passion's base appeals, or used 
For the mere ends of gain, the potent means 
Of thy undoing; while the unfeigned joy 
Thou hast in brave, red-blooded, daring men 
And projects v^ast, may blindly lead thee on 
Past yonder humble, godly one who strives 
Far from the prying gaze of men, unknown, 
Unhonored, yet with a bold faith that dares 
All things for earth's and mankind's good, 

and hopes 
For no reward save what his own appeased 
Strict conscience grants. 

Thy spires tall may point 
Ever in pious passiveness to heaven; 
Thy marts may teem with men of trade, thy 

schools 
With seekers after truth — and yet far flown 
May be life's higher choice — far driven all 
That makes for manhood and the true ideals 



31 



Of noble living: for to gain the things 
Earth dearest holds is oft to lose one's seul 
And blight a thousand more; to win the ap- 
plause 
Of men may be a seeming glorious quest 
While in pursuit, yet in the afterglow 
Of seasoned years, may be the one dark blot 
That shuts heaven's glory out. 

To own the springs 
That from life's hallowed, sacred sources flow 
In actions toward our fellow-men — to spend 
Our talents for the common good of all — 
To bear the weak's infirmities, and spurn 
Our own shortcomings; this it is to live 
The God-ordained life, and grow and thrive 
i\nd keep the lamp aglow our fathers lit 
To flash a ray of hope around the world. 



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